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Sen. Bernie Saunders to run for Dem nomination

Sen. Bernie Saunders (I-Vt.) will announce his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president on Thursday, according to the Washington Post.
Saunders is positioned politically to the left of Hillary Rodham Clinton, the presumed favorite among Democratic candidates. Saunders shares many positions with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) who enjoys great support among liberals but insists she will not run in 2016. That leaves Saunders positioned to capture the left wing of the party.
Saunders’ backers have made no secret of their hope of attracting Warren’s disappointed supporters and small-dollar donors with his well-known opposition to the billionaire class. Saunders recently told the Washington Post his message would concentrate on the “collapse of the middle class” and “income and wealth inequality.” He has called this both a political and a moral issue. Saunders called on all Democratic candidates to address the issues of income inequality and trade.
In an interview with Vermont Public Radio on April 23, Saunders said he opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. “If you want to understand why the middle class in America is disappearing,” he said, “and why we have more wealth and income inequality in America than we’ve had since the late 1920s, you have to address the issue of trade.”
Saunders said, “All of the major corporations…Wall Street…the drug companies want to continue with this trade policy. But organizations representing American workers and the environment do not want to continue the trade policy. They want new trade policies.”
Saunders sees running as a Democrat as a chance to participate in the party’s primary debates. Running as an Independent would afford no opportunity to directly confront Clinton in primary races or caucuses.
The 73 year old Saunders, the son of Jewish immigrants is originally from Brooklyn, New York. As a college student in the 1960s he was a civil rights activist and a member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Before entering the senate, he served as mayor of Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, taught briefly at Harvard University, and in 1990 became the first Independent elected to the US House of Representatives in 40 years representing Vermont’s at-large congressional district.